NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1837, 8 June 1918, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Leon Trotsky, now so prominent in Russian polities, was at one time, it is stated, a moving-picture actor in America. He appeared in a film entitled “My Official Wife,” and his salary is stated to have been just five dollars a day. One of the most daring feats in the war —the bombing of Krupps — war carried out by a pilot nearly forty years of age, who before the outbreak of hostilities had no flying or military experience, but was a peaceful grocer in a French village. Expenditures of the United States aviation services are £400,000 a. day. During the past year the number of aeroplanes was increased twenty times. Congress is considering an aircraft appropriation of £227,400,000.

The death-plant of Java has flowers which continually give off a perfume so powerful as to overcome, if inhaled for any length of time, a full-grown man, and which kills all forms of insect life that come under its influence.

There is an easy, simple way to tell if a diamond is genuine. Make a small dot on a piece of paper with a lead pencil, and look at it through the diamond. If it shows but a single dot the diamond is genuine. If it shows more than one, or the mark appears scattered, it is false, no matter what it cost.

To the moisture of the air we are indebted for the maintenance of an even degree of temperature. But for it, night would be colder than Greenland, even at the tropics. It is the water in the air that holds the sun’s heat and keeps the earth warm when direct sunlight fails' to fall upon bodies.

During August and September no fewer than 35,000 German deserters crossed the Dutch frontier. The dread of having to endure another winter in Flanders is probably the chief reason for this increased leakage. Suspicions are, however’, being entertained that all these deserters may mean something quite different, and that the Germans are allowing men to pass into Holland with a hidden purpose.

The war has revived the shipbuilding industry in Maine, nearly thirty thousand net tons having been built since last summer. Sound travels at twelve miles a minute, and gunfire in France, when heard in England, takes about fifteen minutes to travel there.

The elephant beetle of Venezuela is the biggest of its species. An average specimen of this insect, when full grown, weighs half a pound.

The Bishop of the Falkland Islands exorcises jurisdiction over the clergy of the Church of England of all South America except British Guiana.

An ordinary gas jet, consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour, uses up four times as much atmospheric air as a human being consumes in the same time.

Fighting men in the trendies several miles away listened over the telephone to an entertainment given by a concert party a t one of Iho railheads on the Suez Canal.

The percentage of men rejected for physical reasons for America’s National Army is from 30 to 70 per cent, of the men called —higher than that of any other country.

English women have planned to sell their family jewels for war funds. The Duchess of Marlborough is leading the movement. Her pearls alone are valued at £300,000. The Episebpal Synod of New York and New Jersey is resolved to oppose the introduction of further Sunday work, Sunday baseball, or moving picture exhibitions for pay. A perfectly-proportioned man should weigh 281 b for every foot of his height. If he is sft. lOin in height his weight should be 1631 b. If oft. in height, he should weigh 1681 b.